Mr Muralitharan said: "I see from my eyes there is improvement. I can't say the Prime Minister is wrong or not. He's from England, he hasn't seen the site, he hasn't gone and visited these places - yesterday only."

But Cameron insists he had a good idea of the goings-on in the country.

He visited families still unable to return to their homes after spending 20 years in refugee camps, in the first visit by a foreign leader to the region since 1948.

In what he described as "frank" talks with president Mahinda Rajapaksa the PM said he would press for an international investigation of alleged war crimes if the regime failed to hold a credible one by March.

Mr Muralitharan, a Tamil, said the British PM was under-estimating improvements that had already been made.

He told reporters: "I'm a sportsman and we don't think about politics.

"My opinion is, there were problems in the last 30 years in those areas. Nobody could move there. In wartime I went with the UN, I saw the place, how it was.

"Now I regularly go and I see the place and it is about a thousand percent improvement in facilities.

"Cricket is the main game to narrow the bridge between the people. But facilities-wise, schools are built, roads are built. Businesses are started. So many things have happened. It is improving. Thanks to the Sri Lankan army, they are putting a lot of effort there.

"This country is 20-odd million people. In the north there are only one million people. They are getting more attention than the south at the moment."

Asked about Mr Cameron's stance, Muralitharan said: "He must have been misled by other people."

Call me Dave: David Cameron meets locals in Sri Lanka (Image: PA)

Mr Cameron said it was an enormous pleasure to meet the batsman and joked about the spin-bowler not being able to get him out, but denied he had been misled.

He said: "I think he acknowledged that I was right to come and right to visit.

"Of course I was told all sorts of things yesterday in the north and there are very strong views in this country, strong differing views on some of the issues.

"I would say what matters is not everything I was told but what I myself have said, and I think I've given a fair reflection of some of the things that need to happen in terms of reconciliation, in terms of progress, in terms of human rights, free speech, and I think it's important to raise these issues."